Jaisu Shipping may win Cochin port deal

Private dredging firm Jaisu Shipping Co. Pvt. Ltd is likely to deepen the shipping channel of state-owned Cochin Port Trust in Kerala at an estimated cost of Rs549 crore.

  

The Kandla, Gujarat-based firm had bid to deepen the port’s channel to 16.5m from 13.8m in the first 17 months of signing a deal and maintain that depth for another 11 months, said a shipping ministry official, who didn’t want to be named. At this depth, big ships carrying 8,000 containers can call at the port. Jaisu Shipping’s price bid was the only one opened by the port, as the only other bid submitted by Backbone Projects Ltd was rejected on technical grounds, the official said. The Kewalramani family-owned Jaisu Shipping is also close to winning another deal worth Rs402 crore from Union government-owned Mumbai port to deepen its channel to 14m from 11m, to help operations at a container terminal being developed by Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd and Dragados SPL of Spain. Jaisu Shipping recently won a Rs192 crore deal from Kandla port to deepen its channel. The company declined to comment for the story. The Cochin port has to provide a depth of 16.5m in the channel by November 2009, as per a 30-year contract with DP World, the world’s fourth biggest container port operator, to develop and operate the new facility. Due to depth constraints, big ships cannot call at many of India’s ports that handle container cargo. Thus, a significant part of container cargo originating from, or bound for India is transhipped at ports in Colombo, Singapore, or Dubai. Colombo port, for instance, handles 3.3 million standard containers a year, about 60% of which originates at, or are bound for Indian ports. This is Cochin port’s second attempt in a year to award a dredging contract. The earlier attempt failed because the lone bid of Rs805 crore submitted by Belgian firm Dredging International NV was deemed too costly. Jaisu Shipping’s Rs549 bid is also higher than the Rs485 crore Cochin port had budgeted for the deepening, but the port is likely to accept it because the excess is 20% more than the budget, a range that falls within the parameters the shipping ministry has allowed for state-owned major ports.

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Inland waterway vessels making an important contribution to climate protection

The impressive transport output of inland waterway vessels at the Port of Hamburg made a significant contribution to climate protection in the first half of 2008.

 

Over this period the most environmentally friendly carrier for seaport to hinterland operations at Germany’s biggest seaport carried a total of six million tonnes of goods, for the most part consisting of bulk goods like ore, agricultural products, foodstuffs, animal feeds and mineral oils. The volume of transport rose by 6.5 percent in comparison with the same period last year, making this the best result since 1990. Container transport is particularly important for Hamburg, and here the intermediate balance makes an even more impressive showing: 63,800TEU (standard containers) were carried to or from the port by inland waterway vessel, a clear 47 percent increase as compared with the first six months of the year 2007. Container shipments by inland waterway vessel alone thus managed to replace some 200 lorry loads per day. Container services at present put in regularly to the ports of Aken, Brunswick, Brunsbüttel, Cuxhaven, Glückstadt, Haldensleben, Hanover, Magdeburg, Minden and Riesa. Inland waterway vessels on the Elbe were responsible for the environmentally friendly transport of even greater volumes of goods. Admittedly, the viability of what was once the most important waterway in Europe has been subject to repeated restrictions in view of low water conditions. After the floods of August 2002, all upgrading and maintenance measures on the Middle and Upper Elbe were discontinued. Although expert reports have shown that these undertakings would not accentuate the risk of flooding, shipping conditions since then have steadily got worse. At present, a fairway depth of 1.6 metres can be guaranteed for only 345 days in the year. As Germany’s biggest seaport, the Port of Hamburg has practically doubled the volume of goods it handles in the last 20 years. In view of this dramatic growth, especially in the area of container shipments, upgrading of the port infrastructure is a particularly urgent concern. Seaport to hinterland transport by inland waterway vessel is an environmentally friendly solution, and holds great potential for meeting future transport demands.

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MHI and Wärtsilä to Jointly Develop Small-Size Engines

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Wärtsilä Corporation of Finland will jointly develop new small, low-speed marine diesel engines with cylinder bores of 350 and 400 millimeters (mm).

The two companies agreed on joint design and development of engines of less than 450 mm cylinder bore in May 2008, based on a previously signed strategic alliance agreement. The new engines, to have a power range of 3,500–9,000 kW, will be developed in collaboration, taking advantage of the strengths of the two companies. For both the 350 mm and 400 mm cylinder bore models, MHI will develop the mechanically controlled UEC-LSE series, and Wärtsilä will develop the Wärtsilä RT-flex electronically controlled common-rail engines and Wärtsilä RTA mechanically controlled engines. The first of the 350 mm bore engines will be available in the first quarter of 2011 and the 400 mm bore engines a year later.

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